The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1887-11-12
STOPPING FORWARD.
How Vertigo and Sudden FaIntness
are Often Caused.

On the subject of stopping forward the
London Lancet gives this advice;
Every one knows that STOPPING forward,
particularly after rising quickly from the
bed in the morning, when the stomach is
empty and the heart has less than ordinary
support from the viscera below the dia-
phragm, is very apt to occasion form Of
faintness with vertigo not unlike that
which occurs in seasickness. We do not
at the moment speak of the faintness and
giddiness from cerebral anemia, which are
directly consequent ppon suddenly assum-
ing the erect after hong continuing in the
recumbent posture, but Of the more alarm
ing sensation of being in the centre of OBJ
jects which are rapidly passing away, usu-
ally from left to right, with loss of power
to stand or even sit, and an almost night
mare feeling of inability to call for help or
do anything to avert a catastrophe, while
throughout the experience the sufferer re-
tains painfully acute consciousness. This,
we say, is familiar as one at least of the
effects not uncommonly produced by stoop-
ing forward undOr the special conditions
indicated.
With many other varieties of the vertigo
consequent upon heart weakness or cere-
bral anemia observation or experience has
made us all acquainted. We cannot,
however, help thinking that the conse-
quences of even partial compression of
veins of the neck, offering an obstacle to
the return of blood from the head, with its
important organs, are not so well recogniz-
ed. The peculiar form-or, more accurate
ly, the several forms-of headache distinct
ly caused in this way when the head is
long bowed forward on the chest, bending
the neck on itself, cannot fad to occur to
every one; nor will the high tension of the
eyeball, the turgid and heavy eyelids, the
snuffiing nose, the deafness, with buzz
ing or throbbing in the ears, the heavy
breathing and the puffed and perhaps
flushed or darkened color of the face, re-
sulting from the obstructed venous circula-
ton through the bended neck be forgotten.
There are other and more perilous, though
secondary, effects of leaning forward when
the heart is weak or the blood vessels are
not so strong as they ought to be which
should not be overlooked.
Beyond question the extra strain thrown
upon the apparatus Of the circulation by
anything that impedes the free passage Of
blood Through almost any part of the ven
GUS system is more severe and dangerous
than physically equal strain thrown on
the arteries. At least this is so in adult
life, and without going further into details
in connection with the modus operandi of
the mischief to which we point it may be
permissible to urge that the subject is one
to which attention may be usefully direct
ed. The weakly and those who are not
unlikely to have hearts readily overbuFdeA--
ed and blood vessels stretched beyond re-
covery, or even ruptured, should be warn
ed quite as earnestly against suddenly as
suming, or too long retaining, postures which
do, however, slightly and partially impede the
return of blood through the veins We
know how prolonged sitting may cause the
veins of the legs to become distended and
either give way or permit the extravasation
of their contents. When this sort of thing
happens, even though in comparatively
trihing degree, in the case of vessels direct
ly connected with such delicate organs as
the eye, the ear and the brain, it is easy to
see that the result may be very serious in
their character, and, probably, few postures
commonly taken up by persons who lead
somewhat sedentary lives are SO prone to
do mischief unnoticed as that ofleaning for
ward, as at work at table which is not
sufficiently high to insure the lead being
SO raised that the veins Of the neck may
not be in any way compressed or the return
of blood from the head embarrassed or de-
layed. We see reason to believe that if
this apparently small matter were generally
understood there would be fewer head and
heart troubles, and we viii go so far as to
say that some lives now lost would be saved,
We sleep, but the loom of life never
stops and the pattern which was weaving
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